Fixing Perfect (10 page)

He chuckled again, completely without humor and without looking at her. “Depends. This time, maybe. I don't know.” He jumped up. “Here's our stop.”

She struggled to her feet and clomped down the aisle after him. The driver waited for Sam to land on the street before he engaged the lift. She stepped on it, staggered and wavered for half a second before she pitched off.

Sam caught her, not quite before she hit the ground, but before she'd sustained too much damage. Still, she glared at her right knee, now covered in shredded uniform, grit and flecks of blood, and stinging like crazy.

“Ah, babe.” Sam bent to check out her leg and that gave her time to control her reaction to his nickname. Really, he had to stop calling her that. It was killing her. “Think you can make it inside?”

“Yeah, sure.” She shifted her crutches and tried not to put as much weight on that leg. She walked funny enough without the extra pain, and hot shame dogged her as closely as Sam, with his outstretched arms and wrinkled brow. He was sweet to be so concerned, but, oh, did he have to see how badly the lower half of her body flopped around, out of her control?

“Do you want to sit down while I wash it off?”

“I think I need to lie down.” So much for acting the stoic. She jabbed her crutch toward her bedroom just off the living room.

Sam was helping her lift herself onto her bed when her grandmother came in. She stood at the door to Robin's room, hands on her hips, and watched. “What happened, kiddo?”

“I fell getting off the bus.”

Gram tsked her tongue but came forward to stroke Robin's hair. “I'm really glad I don't have to worry about you having a man in your room.”

“I'm not.” Oh, but that was the pain talking, pain from the sting of humiliation rather than the scraped knee. She looked at Sam, ignoring her grandmother's hoots of laughter.

His lips twitched.

She'd kill him as soon as she could move.

Gram disappeared and came back a moment later with the first aid kit and a dripping cloth, which she handed to Sam. He wiped at her knee, pausing when she gasped but going on with it.

As soon as her grandmother left them again, Robin said, “I didn't mean—”

“I know what you meant.” Sam bent as though he had to see a particularly difficult bit of grit in her wound. “Looks like you're ready for the bandaging.” He took care of that and carried the box to her dresser.

Robin lay on her bed, still burning. She wanted him to leave. She wanted the chance to curl on her side and cry. She wanted to replay the conversation until she could convince herself she hadn't said those awful words, but that couldn't happen.

“Pretty curtains.” Sam pointed to the waterfall of beads covering her window, which faced the street.

Great. Such an obvious ruse to change the subject.

She bit anyway. “My dad helped me make them.”

“Your dad?” His eyebrows headed for his hairline.

“Yeah. The only time I ever saw him. I mean, I probably did when I was tiny, but I don't remember. When I was about three, he had an accident, and he stopped talking. Lots of brain damage. He's been in this home on the mainland since then.” It was an old story to Robin, one that hurt and reassured her at the same time.

“But he made curtains for you?”

She nodded and sat up. The pain had eased when he finished bandaging it, and now, the heat that had flooded her chest had cooled. “He got to come here for a month one summer. He brought all these beads with him, all colors of blue and green, colors of the sea. And we spent hours every day stringing beads. Gram said it was his therapy, but for me—”

“It was a connection.”

“Yes.” She looked up at Sam, at his kind, sweet face, and for half a minute was almost glad she'd let him know how she felt about him. Because love unexpressed was such a waste. “It was our thing. He did it because he loved me, even if he couldn't say the words.”

Sam smiled and let the strands trickle through his curled hand. “What a beautiful legacy.” When the last string clattered against the baseboard, he turned. “I promised Bricker I'd go with him on another search. We're looking around the foothills. They've covered the whole area between Avalon and Wrigley, but there's acres and acres we haven't touched. Miles.” He bent his head. “The two scouts could be anywhere.”

“And Becca.”

“Right. I hope—”

“You hope she's still alive.”

“You got it, yeah. All of them.”

“I'll be praying.”

“Thanks.” He headed for the door, turned back, and dropped a kiss on her cheek.

Only after the front door closed behind him did Robin realize she still had her hand cradled against her face.

 



 

Sam went with Kerry to meet Robin at the park. He'd left her on a bench and hiked up to Kerry's house to save her the walk. It probably would have been better to take her golf cart. Next time he'd suggest it, no matter what kind of a glare she gave him. Fully able locals used the carts to get around. Why couldn't she?

And it would be better for Kerry, too. He didn't need to wear himself out walking so far.

As the two men got closer, Sam saw what Robin was doing. Three baseballs were lined up on a flat stretch of grass, and she smacked each one with her crutch, as though it were a golf club. She wasn't bad, either.

“Hey, Robin. You should play golf,” Kerry yelled. He stumbled forward, and Sam moved close behind him, a hand out in case Kerry lost his balance.

Robin looked up, grinning. “I can drive a mean golf cart, too.”

Sam laughed. “You should drive it more often.”

She shrugged and handed Kerry one of the balls. “Did you bring your mitt?”

“Sam has it.”

Sam produced it from his back pocket, pulled his own out of the other, and grabbed the aluminum bat from the bench where he'd piled everything. “Are we all ready?”

“Sure. You want to go first, Kerry?”

Kerry grabbed the bat and hunkered over the patch of spiky grass that Robin explained was their make-believe home base. “I'm gonna hit it outta the park!”

“You bet.” Sam retrieved all three of the baseballs and waited for Robin to move out of swing distance before he pitched a gentle ball toward Kerry. After a string of hits and even more misses, he took the bat and told Kerry to sit down and drink some water. “You get worn out and your mom won't let you come back.” That was enough to make Kerry cooperate, if he had a mind not to.

“Where's the picture guy?” Kerry wiped his drippy mouth on the inside of his shirt. “Why isn't he taking pictures?”

“I think he only comes to the official games.” Sam watched Robin as he said it. After her comment to her grandmother a few days before, Sam had gone back and forth about telling the older woman about Donovan. Warning her that the other man wasn't the type she could allow into Robin's room unattended. Not that Robin would forgive him for saying anything like that, but sometimes his need to protect her overrode his need to give her dignity. So far, he hadn't said anything. Let Donovan make one comment, let Robin let on she had changed her mind back to liking the guy, or believing he needed defending, and he would.

Not that he felt completely safe in her room himself. But he didn't want to think about that, not with Robin watching his face, not with Kerry to attend to.

“He takes pictures all the time. He took mine.”

“At the game, right?”

“No. After.” Kerry wriggled on the bench. “Can I bat again?”

“In a minute. You need to rest some more.” Robin patted his shoulder.

And Sam needed to ask more questions. “When did he take your picture? Was your mom there?”

“Nope. I was walking.”

“Was that when the creep tried to take you away?”

“No. That was later. He took pictures when Mama let me walk to the store. On Monday. I got licorice.”

“OK.” So Donovan was going around taking pictures of vulnerable people and that meant—what? Kerry was an adult, legally. “So, does he touch you?”

Robin gaped at him, but Sam ignored her.

“You mean bad touching, right? Nope. Donovan's a good guy, Sam. He's like you. He wouldn't hurt me. He rescued me, remember?”

“Right. I remember.”

“When he took me home, he told me all about people who try to hurt other people. Bad people. He said I had to be real careful. He told Mama to watch out for me, and that's why I can't go for walks on my own anymore.” He frowned. “Now I can't get licorice.”

“OK, OK, I get it. Are you ready to practice some more?”

“Yeah, I'm ready!” Kerry jumped up and grabbed the bat before he went back to the patch of grass Robin had pointed out. “Is this the right place, Robin?”

She glanced over. “It sure is, Kerry. Good eye.” She held out her crutch to stop Sam from heading toward Kerry. “You're a jerk.”

“What? I just wanted to make sure.”

“No, you wanted Kerry to say something so you could blame Donovan for everything.”

She held out her hand for the ball and Sam handed it over. And she spent the next ten minutes pitching it at Kerry's bat. If Sam had gotten in the way, he was pretty sure she wouldn't have minded.

 

 

 

 

8

 

Every day, Becca would sit on her mattress and watch Jake tap around the floor and pound on the walls, trying to find a way out of Mr. Bird's special room. Jake yelled a lot, too, when he thought Mr. Bird was gone.

Once Mr. Bird heard him, though, and grabbed his ear and dragged him out the door.

Jake didn't yell for a long time after Mr. Bird brought him back.

But Becca had seen the bruises on his face and arms. That scared her so bad. She didn't want to ask if Mr. Bird hit Jake. If he told her yes, that meant she couldn't like Mr. Bird anymore, and if Becca couldn't like him, that meant she didn't have anybody to like.

“You aren't gonna find anything,” Becca told him after Jake finished trying to rattle the door open.

“What, you'd rather die?” Jake tried to twist the tops of the door hinges with his fingers. “I want to make him sorry he ever nabbed me and Simon.”

“He took your tools.” Becca rubbed her eyes, remembering how Jake had howled about losing the things she thought were just Boy Scout toys. “There's nothing you can do.”

“That's not true!” Jake looked like a mean dog with his lips pulled up and his teeth showing. “We're gonna get out of here!”

Becca shoved her thumb in her mouth and slurped. Ever since this boy came, everything had been scary. He made Mr. Bird so mad, and that meant Mr. Bird wasn't nice to Becca anymore. He wouldn't read to her, or hold her. He wouldn't tell her about his robin, his own little bird he loved so much that he would do anything for her. He wouldn't listen when she asked him to tell her the robin story, the one she got to help with later. He brought food, same as always, but he didn't tell stories while she ate. He never answered her when she asked about her mommy and daddy. He didn't care when she cried, not even enough to get mad at her.

She cried a lot now.

It didn't help.

Jake walked around the room, his arms crossed like he wanted to hug himself. Every so often, he'd stop and look up at the ceiling, or at the concrete floor, or the walls that had no windows, or the light way above their heads, that never went out. And he'd shake his head.

Becca laid down on the bed and put her thumb back in her mouth. Her other hand went down between the mattress and the wall. The hole was bigger now, bigger than her whole hand even when she spread her fingers out. If Jake found it, he'd tell Mr. Bird. Or maybe not. But if it got too big, Mr. Bird would find out anyway.

She didn't want Mr. Bird to drag her out by her ear and do things to her. Spank her maybe.

And she still couldn't help digging into the crumbly white stuff. The feel of it under her nails, and the feel of her thumb in her mouth, made everything better, safe, and she dug until she fell asleep.

 



 

“I feel guilty coming out here to have fun when those kids are still missing.” Robin adjusted her grip on her crutches. For their foray across the sand, she'd slipped x-cut tennis balls over the tips. Though they kept the crutches from sinking too far into the sand, they did nothing to protect her braces. Those, she knew, would fill with irritating particles and chafe her shins long before she got to where she could take them off. Still, time on the beach was more than worth the irritation.

Sam reached for her elbow but moved back. “Not having fun won't help them.”

“But we could be doing something.”

“We have been.” This time Sam grabbed her as she teetered but let go once she'd regained her balance. “I've been out with Bricker almost every day. You're praying. You're collecting funds at the co-op. You're cooperating with the police. You're doing everything you can. And we both deserve a break.” His gaze cut to her. “Robin, we've been over this. You're not doing anything wrong.”

She nodded, concentrating on dragging each foot after the other. The resistance as the sand piled up made her slower than ever. She glanced up at Sam.

He looked across the water. His eyes squinted against the never-ending wind, but she didn't get the impression of impatience from his posture. Instead, he had shoved his hands in his pockets and seemed content to take one long, leisurely step to every three of her shuffles.

She stopped to catch her breath, and he nodded toward the beach. “You can see the mainland today.”

She peered toward the horizon where a long, low smear of shadow bisected the sea and sky. “Pretty cool to see something that's twenty-six miles away.”